2. The bitcoin user network will grow 61 times through 2030. A population of bitcoin users comprising 5% of the world’s population in 2030 will drive the price to $500,000 in 2030. From 2013 to 2017, the network grew from 120,000 users to 6.5 million users, nearly a 54-fold gain. Such growth would produce 400 million users in 2030.

3. The average bitcoin value per user will hit $25,000. When institutional investors cash in their bitcoins, bitcoin-based ETFs and trading by sophisticated investors will increase, pushing the average value to $25,000. With a current market cap of $17.4 billion and 6.5 million users, the average user now holds $2,515 of bitcoin.

4. The 2030 market cap is based on the number of bitcoin holders multiplied by the average held bitcoin value.The cryptocurrency’s 2030 supply will be about 20 million.

5. The 2030 price and user count will total $500,000 and 400 million, respectively. The price is determined by taking the $10 trillion market cap and dividing it by 20 million bitcoins, the fixed supply.

I find this very hard to believe. Who even uses bitcoin other than a very tiny and very specific demographic? How many years has it been around, and I've never, ever heard it ever come up in everyday life or in real world scenarios, other than some random news article that says, "Hey, bitcoin is still around, guys! Remember bitcoin? Here's what some guy says it's 'worth' now! Don't you feel dumb for not investing in it ten years ago??" I feel like all the people who are already interested in bitcoin are already using it, and no one else gives a damn. I think it's just a fad.

The problem with #2 right now is that it's recently become more difficult to buy Bitcoin with US Dollars. You used to be able to with credit cards for a very low fee, but all of those companies stopped doing it in the U.S.

I think niche #1 is a large part of what is giving bitcoin it's value.

Bitcoin is also inherently designed to become more valuable with time. Each bitcoin is harder to mine than the one before, so it takes more time/processing power to create.

I intend on going all-in on bitcoin just as soon as I close out my beanie-babies position.

Jokes aside, bitcoin is facing a huge problem with the block-chain becoming too large which tends to make transactions take several hours to complete. There's no easy fix for that (or any of the other fundamental technological issues it suffers) and those problems must be fixed before any widescale adoption takes place. The more people who try using bitcoin the bigger the problems become.

You used to be able to with credit cards for a very low fee, but all of those companies stopped doing it in the U.S.

No offense intended but purchasing a wildly volatile "investment" instrument with borrowed money at 20% interest is an incredibly foolish thing to do. Whoever stopped allowing that is doing you a huge favor.

One can argue since bitcoin is becoming more mainstream and getting regulated in big markets like Japan and Russia ( soon ) that it will give the financial market a positive signal to trade more, invest etc, which will help the price rise long term.

No offense intended but purchasing a wildly volatile "investment" instrument with borrowed money at 20% interest is an incredibly foolish thing to do. Whoever stopped allowing that is doing you a huge favor.

An investment isn't the only reason to buy bitcoins. I never held on to any for an extended period, but I wish I had.

You can buy in/cash out to all the major online casinos for no fee with bitcoin, for example.

Also worth mentioning - you can transfer any fraction of a bitcoin up to several decimal places. So you can buy $1 worth of bitcoin, even with 1BTC trading for $1200 USD+.

The easy splitting combined with low transaction fees also makes it a great way to conduct micro-transactions.

Right now a lot of online merchants are having problems with charge back fraud. Cryptocurrencies don't suffer from this problem so merchants could possibly force further adoption rates on the issue. (However there is competition in this area from fingerprint scanners and other payment services so who knows how it will play out in the long run).

Assume the worst, believe no one, and make your move only when you are certain that you are unbeatable or have, at worst, exceptionally good odds in your favor.

Two people, not counting me, voted that Bitcoin coin will crash in this thread. I also think that.

First, I'm 51 and 100% of the time I've seen something rise in value extremely fast, it was always accompanied by an even bigger crash the other way. Furthermore, Bitcoin comes off to me as something of a fad.

Second, there are already competing virtual currencies like Ethereum. Eventually, I predict, every currency will be virtual. Give it about 50 years. Then there will be no need for currencies based on nothing like Bitcoin. Instead, we'll all use virtual dollars, Euros, pounds, or whatever.

Prediction -- On Jan 4/21/2027 Bitcoin will be worth under $100.

It's not whether you win or lose; it's whether or not you had a good bet.

Second, there are already competing virtual currencies like Ethereum. Eventually, I predict, every currency will be virtual. Give it about 50 years. Then there will be no need for currencies based on nothing like Bitcoin. Instead, we'll all use virtual dollars, Euros, pounds, or whatever.

For the most part this is already the case. I know I never touch any cash for my business/personal finances.

The issue is that it is costly to process these transactions, due to the security/regulatory/technology expenses incurred by financial institutions and payment processors. The peer-to-peer blockchain system that Bitcoin (or any cryptocurrancy) uses solves many of these issues.

The math/compsci behind blockchains is pretty solid. I think transaction processing will trend this direction in the future, regardless of the currency.